A
batch of laptops pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium was found to
have been infected with a 13-year-old boot sector virus.Those of you with a long
memory will vividly recall the year 1994: Nirvana's lead singer Kurt Cobain
died, South Africa held its first multi-racial elections, and Tony Blair became
leader of the Labour party. Oh, and Microsoft's operating system was the quaint,
pre-NT Windows for Workgroups. But it was a year that also saw the arrival of a
boot sector computer virus known as Stoned.Angelina which moved the original
master boot record to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 9.It would appear that this
teenage virus has not yet been consigned to the history books.
According to
Virus
Bulletin, the consignment of infected Medion laptops - which could number
anything up to 100,000 shipments - had been sold in Danish and German branches
of retail giant Aldi. The computers had been loaded with Microsoft's latest
operating system Vista and Bullguard's anti-virus software, which failed to
detect and remove the malware.
Update:
BullGuard has developed a tool which will automatically remove
Stoned.Angelina from infected systems after it has been found.